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Creativity Always Wins: The Poop Monster Saga

How can one sweet little boy turn into such a little stinker in a matter of minutes?

When you tell him he has to poop in the potty.

But tonight was a night for celebrating and extra cookies. If you are a parent who has recently been doing the potty training thing, you will understand and find humor in it. If not, you will probably find a post about pooping quite boring. But sorry, I don’t care… Because this is a happy time for Mommy!

Collin is pretty much potty trained, and a good thing because he’s gonna be three in less than a week. But for some reason he just wont poop in the toilet. He will whine and cry for a diaper. I have done everything imaginable to get him to just SIT on the toilet, besides tying him down. And I am so sick of skid marks in the little Tansformer underpants and cleaning up turds. I am tired of cleaning the damn carpet. I am tired of extra unnecessary laundry. I am tired of trying to bribe him to just to take a crap in the toilet. And as much as we love books around here, reading doesn’t work either.

But he finally did it! And it wasn’t with bribes, it was with creativity and I guess a little fear, as much as I don’t want to admit the last part.

He comes into the bathroom, “Poop, Mom. Poop!” Ugh! I resigned myself to cleaning up another mess, but he didn’t actually go. So I finally got my big girl pants/mommy britches on and quit giving in. “Don’t you dare get off that toilet until you poop!” He whined. He kept getting off. I kept having to get my tired butt off the Lightning McQueen footstool to put him back on. (Yep, I took a seat figuring it would probably take a while). “I don’t care if we’re here all night,” I told him. “We are not leaving this bathroom until you finish and go poop in that toilet!”

Needless to say, that didn’t work.

Until I spotted the Poop Monster right outside the door. (I don’t know where I come up with these ideas, they just hit me in the spur of the moment.) “Collin! Poop! You have to poop in the potty,” I said and glanced out the bathroom door nervously. “The Poop Monster is coming! He’s gonna…” (and I did have to think on this one) “He’s gonna bite your butt! You have to poop in the potty.” And I made all kinds of farting noises. “You have to do that to keep him away. And go poop in the potty before he gets here!”

You know, he looked a little scared. “Mom, shut da door! Shut!” he motioned at the door with his little hand. I shut the door. I didn’t want to totally scare him, even though it was a little fun – I’ll admit it. And so did Bradley, who was in the shower and couldn’t resist popping out from behind the shower curtain at that moment and yelling “Boo!”

“If you make the poop face and go poopy in the toilet he will go away. He wont bite your butt.” And needless to say, after the look of panic on his face (even though he was having fun too, we were fighting a monster!), and repeating the process several times with lots of fart noises, and urgently glancing out the door, he finally pooped in the toilet for the first time!

We cheered. We high-fived. He was so proud.

So creativity wins out this time. I couldn’t bribe the kid to take a crap, but I was able to scare the shit out of him!

What kinds of trials and tribulations have you gone through with potty training? What worked and what didn’t? What did you find yourself doing that you couldn’t believe you actually did?

I once bribed Collin that I would let him use my computer if he went…kind of glad he didn’t that time because I probably wouldn’t have a computer left after that one.

My other favorite “creative” story was with my nephew, Jonas, when he was two or three. He was terrified of fireworks and would freak out. I asked him if he knew who Tinker Bell was and he did. I told him that Tinker Bell ate a lot of beans and that was her up in the air flying around and every time she farted it made a big bang and all those pretty sparks. He thought it was hilarious and totally forgot about being terrified. He was just looking for the little fairy flying in the air with exploding farts.

Sometimes you just have to be creative. And even though I kind of scared my sweet little blonde boy; we had fun, it worked, and I should get a gold medal for best creative story for taking a shit.

Haha! Amanda…you are too funny!
I usually stray away from mystical beings with the kids, like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause or Magical ‘Eat-Your-Butt-Poop-Monsters’.. Lol
But, one day, Meysa was on a ‘her boobs/my boobs’ what-why-where-how thing, that 3 years olds do. And out of nowhere, I replied, “The Boobie Monster took your boobies. And when you get big enough, you have to go beat him up and get your boobies back.” I have NO idea where this came from, it just exploded out of my mouth to stop all the questions. The funniest thing was that she said Oh, excepted the answer and went on her merry lil’ way.